Georgetown Family To Appear On Family Feud This Monday

While things are currently crazy in the world, we’re spending a lot more time in front of the television screen, and apparently watching more game shows. Shows like The Price is Right, Let’s Make a Deal, and Family Feud are seeing ratings spikes as more people tune in on a daily basis. But, we want to give you another reason to tune in this week: the Holder family from Georgetown will be on Family Feud this Monday night! The Holder team is comprised of Bill and Ida Holder, their son Landon Holder, and their two daughters, Rachel Lukacsko and Lydia Moore. Earlier this week, I caught up with the Holder family to chat about their upcoming stint on Family Feud.

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What drove you all to decide to audition for Family Feud? Is this something you all watch regularly, or was this just an idea that popped up?

Rachel: My sister and mom found out about it and told the family that we should try out for this, so we sent in an audition tape. There were no stipulations on what the audition tape needed to be like. So, we came up with taking the “Family Matters” theme song and pretending that we were in the introduction. You know, acting like you’re caught off guard, then you smile at the camera real cheesy. One of my nieces spliced it up and put it on YouTube, and that’s how we got started.

*Yes… they sent us the audition video*

Landon: It was a long process. We originally were called in after they accepted our application video, and scheduled us in Louisville at one of the big convention centers. I believe there were around 7,000 families trying out. So we went there and they put all the families in one of four large auditoriums, where they put you in mock games with the different families that came in. As you were walking out after your turn, if they discretely handed you a paper and told you to go to this table this meant, and we didn’t know this at the time, you were selected out of those groups. You then went into an interview room an hour or so later, while everyone else went home. We were interviewed as a family and individually, then they sent us home and said we might contact you and you might be on the show. It was months later when we heard from them that we had been selected, but they wanted to interview us on the phone again. They told us we were selected and that they were going to fly us out to LA. Even then, we were still auditioning and that we could show up and still not be guaranteed to even make it on the show.

Stan: They fly the families out, at no cost, and put us in a very nice hotel. We were given a few meals a day, so they were very accommodating, and everyone on the program and the staff were just fantastic people. Every time they were very friendly, very helpful. So we really had a great experience going out there.

Going into the Louisville process, and before flying out to Los Angeles, did you practice at home? Did you set up any mock games?

Lydia: Not at all… we did nothing.

Stan: We watched a bit, we’ve watched Family Feud.

Lydia: We watched Family Feud like two times, I mean, we watched it growing up. There’s really no way to prepare for this.

So you get to the studio and you’re told that you’re not necessarily going to get on. How do you find out that you’re actually going to appear on the show?

Ida: They have you come in early in the morning and there are several families there. You’re all in the same room sitting around individual tables. One of the things they have you do is go out and watch shows that are going on, but then they also have some mock games, where you get up and play each other. Then you go back to the room and you wait, and wait, and wait. One family got sent home during the waiting portion. So you just wait in this room while they play games and you don’t ever know if you’re going to get to play.

After you find out that you’re going on, do you get to meet Steve Harvey beforehand? Is he just as friendly off-camera?

Ida: No, he doesn’t meet you until he comes out for the actual game. They don’t want him to know anything about you. They want it to be very spontaneous. They want you to say what you do, and say things that are interesting. So he knows nothing about us.

Rachel: When you’re doing the warm-ups, they have a different host who has the same energy.

Stan: A little Steve.

Rachel: Yeah, like a little Steve. So you practice that way, and they want to make sure that you keep your enthusiasm going the whole time. They want to make sure that you’re loud and you speak up and they see what order they put you in if they do select you to play the game.

Stan: I kind of described the whole event all day long as like being in a high school pep rally for 12 hours. Constant energy, constant enthusiasm. They say they don’t want to you to be acting. They want you to be the best version of yourself. Which is hard for us, but we try!

So going back to what you said before. They actually put you in the order in which you’re going to play? I was always under the impression that you got to pick your lineup.

Rachel: No, you can have an idea about it, but then they’ll make adjustments.

That’s crazy, I’ve never heard that before. Did you enjoy the actual game play? Was the buzzer hard to get timed out?

Ida: It’s just stressful.

Lydia: I thought it was exhilarating, super-duper exciting because you’re meeting Steve Harvey for the first time on TV. One of the main things was you can’t hardly hear on stage, and so I remember straining to hear his questions. If you miss it the first time he reads the question at the podium, then it’s bad news because you can’t really answer the question.

I don’t want to spoil anything, but were there any funny gaffes at the podium? Funny answers that come up?

Lydia: Yes… Yes…

Stan: We probably shouldn’t talk about it, but with Steve Harvey, Stan will be the star of the show. They did say that I was a darlin’. It’s kind of like a ballgame, where they’ll actually call a time-out during the production of the show. Gabby, who is a producer will come up and talk to you about what you can do better, help you out kind of like a coach giving you a pep talk when you call a time-out. So that was interesting, because that 25 minutes show might take an hour and a half to film. But Steve Harvey is the same all the time, on or off air, very engaging. He’s got a funny personality, very warm.

Landon: And raunchy… all in one.

Well that’s the thing, right? The newer tone of Family Feud in the Steve Harvey era has more of that edge. Was that about right?

Stan: It wasn’t really. You know, when we were playing, I don’t remember any questions that were off-color. I think Steve is reading them for the first time when he gets up there. Some of the questions could make you blush, but we didn’t have any of those when we were competing.

Landon: You’re there all day, so you might be there 10-12 hours, so Steve is there most of that time with you. So, in between commercial breaks and shows, he comes out and engages with the audience and talks to the people. He’s very relational and approachable in that sense. But at the same time, but off air, his content is very mature.

Sure, much like if you were to see him do stand-up.

Landon: Yeah, so that’s why you have to be 16-or-up to be in the audience for that reason.

Would you recommend trying out for Family Feud to other families, or would you ever try out for a game show again?

Whole Family: Absolutely, yes.

Stan: Sometimes they have a reunion tournament, which has nothing to do with how you perform when you were there. They just look for how you perform and if you were goofy and funny, so some folks they invite back and we would love to do that.

Rachel: It all depends on how well the audience receives you, like when they do air it, what kind of feedback that they get from the viewing audience.

Landon: And we DID win the $1,000,000.

Is there anything fun or exciting that happened during your time with the show?

Landon: I will say this, my younger sister got all the attention from the boys when we were younger, but when we were there, my older sister got all the attention and my younger sister was really jealous.

Lydia: My older sister, let me rephrase, my OLDER sister has really beautiful red hair that stands out and porcelain skin that stands out in Hollywood. So, you know it was a rare beauty there.

Stan: She’s a doll.

Lydia: Yeah, whatever.

Just in this brief time talking with you it seems like you all get along very well and would make for a very entertaining group to be on Family Feud.

Ida: I guess they thought so too, haha.

Stan: We’re really more entertaining when we’re not getting along.

Ida: The thing that’s funny about it is, we just tell it like it is. We don’t give artificial compliments to each other, and they tell you when you’re on set you HAVE to be positive. You have to yell “GOOD ANSWER. Yeah, it’s up there,” even when we’re thinking “You’re an idiot, why would you say that?”

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The Holders will appear on Family Feud on Monday, April 20. In the Lexington area, the episode will appear on the CW Network at 7:00 PM.